Schools, MOOCS and Distance Learning
What is the purpose of schools and schooling? If we look at current public education in the United States, it would be hard to argue that it looks different than it looked 100 years ago. There are chairs in rows facing a teacher in the front of the room. Student are asked to memorized dates, figures, and facts and recall them for tests. Teachers are evaluated on how well students perform on these tests and how well they keep "Law and Order" in their classroom. In a talk by world renowned educator Sir Ken Robinson, he describes an education system set up in the industrialized age (time stamp 6:32 in the before mentioned talk). The circumstance current students find themselves in and the work-world we are preparing them for, is very different. When a person can find the answer to just about any question with a Google search in just a little more time than it took them to formulate the question... we need to be teaching our students different skills. Michael Wesch professor of Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University put together, along with his students, a video describing what college students deem as important today. In his 2010 TEDxKC talk he stated that we need to move from knowledgeable to knowledge-able. According to Thomas L. Freedman in "The World is Flat", there are 4 types of people who will have jobs in this exponentially changing world.
How would I use technology to transform education into the institution we need for the 21st century?
Best Practice 1: Be Present at the Course Site. Send announcements to students via blackboard (or it's equivalent) at least once a week.
Best Practice 2: Create a supportive online course community. Have student join a Google+ Circle ( or equivalent) so that they can start creating community that can last beyond the end of the course. I strive to nurture life long learners!
Best Practice 3: Share a set of very clear expectations for your students and for yourself as to (1) how you will communicate and (2) how much time students should be working on the course each week. This will be clearly stated in the syllabus for the course and the weekly unit information package. The syllabus will be available online via Google Drive or the learning portal (or equivalent).
Best Practice 4: Use a variety of large group, small group, and individual work experiences. Google+ Hangout can be used to facilitate partner and small group (up to 10) work. Gotomeeting, Skype, and Google Drive and facilitate the collaboration in group work.
Best Practice 5: Use both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Message boards and bloggs are good platforms for asynchronous work even a FaceBook page. Second Life and the before mentioned platforms (practice 4) can be used for synchronous work.
Best Practice 6:Early in the term - about week 3, ask for informal feedback on "How is the course going?" and "Do you have any suggestions?"Google+ has a poll feature. It can be used with the class circle to check in with people. A separate tool is Survey Monkey.
Best Practice 7: Prepare Discussion Posts that Invite Questions, Discussions, Reflections and Responses. In introductions to discussion boards ask learners to reflect on readings/ video viewing. Ask them to talk about how it made them feel, or the questions the information prompted in their minds, not the "Clift Notes" of what thy saw/read.
Best Practice 8: Focus on content resources and applications and links to current events and examples that are easily accessed from learner's computers. YouTube videos, my RSS feed (Feedly), both have current information and articles I can easily "share" with learners in our class Google+ Circle or FaceBook page. I can even tweet about it (as long as the class is following my tweets #EDCU2700)
Best Practice 9: Combine core concept learning with customized and personalized learning. Have students participate in discussion forums, blogging, or e-journals and comment on the contributions of their classmates.
Best Practice 10: Plan a good closing and wrap activity for the course. Students will need to use the tools used throughout the course to create a final project (PSA, Video/-Blogg, YouTube video, etc.) can be solo, paired or group work. As the annual Global Education Conference is held each November, students could be encouraged to create a submission for the week-long virtual event or a similar event.
- Special People: Beethoven, Madonna, Einstein, Michael Jordan; we may all want to be that special but few have the ability or attributes necessary.
- Specialized People: Brain surgeon, Oceanographers, Rocket Scientist, ballerinas; years of focused study and practice will get you there.
- Anchored People: where you have to be in the same place to accomplish the goal, Plumbers, Electricians etc. (be careful of this one). With technology, jobs we thought were anchored just 20 years ago, are being performed half way across the world (radiologist viewing x-ray, cat-scans, etc).
- Adaptable People: these people have skills that cut across industries and job tasks. The ability to create, analyze, collaborate, collect, organize, and connect will make people valuable no matter the job (many not even existing yet.).
How would I use technology to transform education into the institution we need for the 21st century?
- Tests - Now, before you hit yourself in the head with a hammer, I'm talking about learning style tests, aptitude tests, cognitive test. I was lucky, I came up with my own coping skills that allowed me to excel at school despite my dyslexia. My brother wasn't so lucky. Not only did he have his hand switch (by a retired school teacher), he went through school being told that he was stupid, he wouldn't/couldn't learn, and was tracked into remedial classes. He went to the Army after high school and has never been the same (PTSD).
- Group students by ability and learning styles, larks vs owls (Don't ask my husbands to think before 10AM) etc. Technology give us the ability to customize learning and students with similar interests and ability level can be grouped for a particular subject. With constructivist classrooms, learners can help each other learn, collaborate, connect, and analyze.
- Have the students come up with the questions and direction of inquiry. We can use whatever they are interested in to teach what they need to know.
- Use the tools the learners are already using to teach them. Learners are all over Insta-gram and twitter... how do we use those tools in the classroom? I'm learning all about those tools in EDCU2760!
Best Practice 1: Be Present at the Course Site. Send announcements to students via blackboard (or it's equivalent) at least once a week.
Best Practice 2: Create a supportive online course community. Have student join a Google+ Circle ( or equivalent) so that they can start creating community that can last beyond the end of the course. I strive to nurture life long learners!
Best Practice 3: Share a set of very clear expectations for your students and for yourself as to (1) how you will communicate and (2) how much time students should be working on the course each week. This will be clearly stated in the syllabus for the course and the weekly unit information package. The syllabus will be available online via Google Drive or the learning portal (or equivalent).
Best Practice 4: Use a variety of large group, small group, and individual work experiences. Google+ Hangout can be used to facilitate partner and small group (up to 10) work. Gotomeeting, Skype, and Google Drive and facilitate the collaboration in group work.
Best Practice 5: Use both synchronous and asynchronous activities. Message boards and bloggs are good platforms for asynchronous work even a FaceBook page. Second Life and the before mentioned platforms (practice 4) can be used for synchronous work.
Best Practice 6:Early in the term - about week 3, ask for informal feedback on "How is the course going?" and "Do you have any suggestions?"Google+ has a poll feature. It can be used with the class circle to check in with people. A separate tool is Survey Monkey.
Best Practice 7: Prepare Discussion Posts that Invite Questions, Discussions, Reflections and Responses. In introductions to discussion boards ask learners to reflect on readings/ video viewing. Ask them to talk about how it made them feel, or the questions the information prompted in their minds, not the "Clift Notes" of what thy saw/read.
Best Practice 8: Focus on content resources and applications and links to current events and examples that are easily accessed from learner's computers. YouTube videos, my RSS feed (Feedly), both have current information and articles I can easily "share" with learners in our class Google+ Circle or FaceBook page. I can even tweet about it (as long as the class is following my tweets #EDCU2700)
Best Practice 9: Combine core concept learning with customized and personalized learning. Have students participate in discussion forums, blogging, or e-journals and comment on the contributions of their classmates.
Best Practice 10: Plan a good closing and wrap activity for the course. Students will need to use the tools used throughout the course to create a final project (PSA, Video/-Blogg, YouTube video, etc.) can be solo, paired or group work. As the annual Global Education Conference is held each November, students could be encouraged to create a submission for the week-long virtual event or a similar event.